PNS | DEHRADUN
The Food and Civil Supplies minister Rekha Arya directed the officials to draft a proposal for providing reservation to women in fair price shop allocations and prioritising women for filling vacant positions in the shops. This is part of the government’s commitment to enhance women’s representation in the public distribution system as part of its broader goal of women’s empowerment. She stated this in a meeting with senior officials of the department held on Thursday.
Arya also reviewed the progress of the free cooking gas refill scheme, which had earlier received cabinet approval. She emphasised the need for swift issuance of government orders to enable direct benefit transfers (DBT) of subsidies into beneficiaries’ accounts. She also assessed the status of the government’s fortified salt nutrition programme, the distribution of ration under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and matters concerning the commission and transportation costs of fair price shop dealers.
She also instructed the department to ensure timely payment of transportation costs to contractors handling doorstep delivery under NFSA. She further directed that the State government bear these costs at its level to streamline payments to contractors while integrating funds received from the central government.
